The word that rhymes with room is gloom , “a state of depression or despondency .” Louise Mallard would clearly be in a state of depression and despondency and women in general at that time had cause to be despondent. Additionally, it was a depressing time for persons of African decent living in the South, as slavery still existed, as is evident because Kate Chopin’s family The O’Flaherty also owned slaves. Another word that comes to mind with room is a prison, because Louise Mallard was trapped in a matrimonial prison, as a wife and in a socially constructed female prison, that all women are born into by virtue of their gender Dimock Wai-chee writes in (“Kate Chopin.” Modern American Women Writers.) “In spite of these efforts, however, gender inequality remained a glaring fact at the turn of the century. In New Orleans, for instance, the Napoleonic Code still formed the basis for the marriage contract. The wife and all her "accumulations" after marriage were the propert...